Hull trio Still who are comprised of Fraser Briggs – Guitar/Vocals, Jack Green – Drums/Vocals and Adam Williams on Bass have recordings dating back to 2017. These include the self-released demo Karin, 2019's Reprieve EP and 2021's well-regarded debut full-length { }, the latter two being released on the now sadly defunct Trepanation Recordings (R.I.P).
A Theft marks the trio's sophomore album and their first on Joel Clayton of Pijn's newly formed label Floodlit Recordings. Speaking of Clayton, he returns for production duties and has recorded it at Manchester's No Studio, home to UK heavy hitters such as Bossk, Mastiff, and Wode. Still have also performed with exceptional artists such as Agriculture, Glassing and Torpor and played the ArcTanGent Festival in 2022. With the band experiencing personal loss with the death of Fraser Briggs' father, the stage is set for a bleak and harrowing aural experience.
'Yearn' delivers crushing Post-Metal with agonized Vocals that aptly reflect the aforementioned traumatic events giving the whole thing a strong cathartic sensibility. Along the way vicious Black Metal is featured, easily as good as anything Darkthrone have delivered in their career and the track eventually comes full circle with a minute of pure droning ambient bliss. A powerful opener. 'Only Time Will Tell' features no such steady build-up, instead you are bombarded from the off by tidal waves of blastbeats and pulverising Post-Hardcore goodness. 'Light' feels strangely eerie and atmospheric despite its pace thus demonstrating a band not just playing at speed for the sake of it. Instead there's a method to the madness with a dizzying array of time signatures that run contrary to the formulaic Hardcore of bands such as Hatebreed. Where there's 'Light' conversely there has to be 'Dark', and there's plenty of that on the latter with the kind of early 90's sounds one would have found in Norway on albums such as De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. Integrity's Howling For The Nightmare Shall Consume also comes to mind due to the track's breakneck style and heavy Metalcore breakdowns to supply in totality breathtaking results.
The second half of the album commences with a brief interlude piece by the name of 'Oscillate', a minute of Lustmord Dark Ambient loveliness (which is broken abruptly by some sonic nastiness, so brace yourself) while 'Life Eclipses Living' is slow grinding throughout in a manner that recalls the Industrial bleakness of Godflesh, making for a welcome change in pace and showcasing another side to the band's repertoire. Business is soon resumed with 'Small Mercies of Falling Apart', the track stunningly dynamic with its expert use of alternating fast-slow passages showing a band at the peak of its creative powers. Finally there's 'Unresolved' the longest track on the album and as the title suggests hardly one brimming with optimism and joie de vivre; especially with lyrics such as “Fractured pieces won’t find each other, they’ve already forgotten what it was to be whole.” As an outlet for pure gut-wrenching grief and despair however its absolutely perfect. Musically and lyrically its as bleak as anything heard on Black Flag's My War, an album I played endlessly in my early 20s following the dissolution of a relationship, which being my first hit particularly hard, and which concludes the album on a suitably epic if somewhat despondent note.
The cliché of the 'suffering artist' is wearisome but feels applicable here and while its tragic that such an awful event befell Still, it did lead to the making of the best album of their career and one which may prove a challenge to follow-up from. Superb.
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